First published by Workplace Express.
Business groups have to cooperate and overhaul their campaign tactics to match groups like GetUp and trade unions, according to Australian Mines and Metals Association chief executive Steve Knott.
Opening the AREEA annual conference in Perth, Knott said he would approach other employer groups in coming weeks to discuss how they could better sell the business message to the broader community.
Knott said that business groups had been “slapped off the park” during the last election by community campaigns which could often be traced back to “Sussex Street” – the head office of the NSW Labor Party – or to green groups.
He said that some “old-style messaging” was clearly not working and suggested that employers read a book by Sydney-based activist Amanda Tattersall, Power in Coalition: Strategies for strong unions and social change.
Tattersall is a former official of Unions NSW and founder of the Sydney Alliance. She is also co-founder and chair of GetUp and an honorary associate in work and organisational studies at the University of Sydney.
Knott told Workplace Express that he would approach a “whole range of business groups” over the idea.
“But there’s also the flagship ones like the BCA, ACCI and AIG and others, and let’s see if we can just carve out common territory.”
He said that a community of interest could be found on company tax reform, small business, big business and the red tape that delayed approval of big resource projects.
“It’s a long term play, but we’ve been missing in action for the last 10 years and the union movement, the GetUps, the other groups, are light years ahead of the business community.”
“Apex of influence”
Knott said that AREEA also supported the creation of a specialist appeal body above the Fair Work Commission.
He cited the decision to appoint two vice-presidents to the Commission bench – Adam Hatcher and Joseph Catanzariti – above two existing vice-presidents, Graeme Watson and Michael Lawler.
Lawler, the partner of controversial former HSU official Kathy Jackson, resigned from the Commission before the release of a report criticising his conduct.
Vice-President Watson was today seen at the AREEA conference.
Knott maintained that the appointment of the new vice-presidents was criticised by the Law Council of Australia.
“There’s an apex of influence at the top of the Fair Work Commission that is very labour/union orientated,” he claimed.
While accepting that members of the bench took an oath of office to show equity and good conscience, he said many full bench proceedings had no members with any business experience.
“The appeal body would be specialist jurists in that area and they can be drawn from academia, social groups, business and so forth. But let’s get the right people there and recognise that it’s a truly independent recruitment selection process, to try and take the politics out of it.”
In his speech, Knott said he thought there was an increasing chance that legislation to re-establish the ABCC would be passed a joint sitting of the Federal Parliament once the final composition of the Senate was decided.
He said the Coalition needed 114 votes to pass the legislation at a joint sitting, and it had 76 MPs in the House of Representatives and 30 members in the Senate.
Two re-elected senators – Bob Day and David Leyonhjelm – supported bringing back the ABCC.
Knott said that Employment Minister Michaelia Cash was talking to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party, which meant “you almost get to the magical number in the joint sitting”.
He said the return of the ABCC would be important for the resources sector because, after lobbying by AREEA, its reach had been extended to cover offshore oil and gas construction.
AREEA wants to see an expanded range of workplace agreements – including individual agreements and non-union deals – and reforms to unfair dismissal and adverse action.
